I have a 1966 town hardtop. Been driving this gal for almost 5 years now, and still can't locate the issue. The PO's of this car have either destroyed, or incorrectly modified everything in this bird.(even a '64 air cleaner) I've been taking steps to undo all of that, but it's a slow and strenuous process. I've been taking care of restoring other issues in the mean time, but here I am, back at this nagging issue. I am not well versed in the terminology, so I may not explain this in the best way:

My bird constantly throws belts. At 60+mph the engine is too loud to hear anything else around me. All the stock belt sizes don't work, so this leads me to believe something is wrong in the pulley department. Also, the bird won't kickdown either when driving. Unsure as to whether that is related, or is a carb issue.

So what you have is most of a A/C belt set up. That shelf above the P/S pump is where the A/C compressor would bolt on. I can’t tell for sure, but the P/S bracket does not look like the cast iron 2-piece bracket that would be correct for a ‘66 Tbird with A/C.

If your car is not an A/C car, you will need different alternator and P/S brackets and different pullies for the crank, water pump, and power steering pump to make it correct. If you are not worried about correctness, you should be able to make this work.

Throwing belts is all about pulley alignment. It doesn’t take much misalignment to cause a lot of squealing and chew up a belt in a few dozen miles. Line up a straightedge with the crank pulley and make sure the alternator, P/S pump, and water pump belt grooves all line up exactly. Alternator position is the easiest to adjust by adding washers to the pivot spacer or grinding it down (make sure to keep it square). The P/S pump sits in a basket, so the position of that basket must be moved in or out.

Given what I see, there is a good possibility that the P.O. mixed parts from different engines and/or left out washers and spacers when putting it together. If the crank pulley is mismatched from a different year it could cause a lot of issues. However, even if you had a full set of parts that worked together perfectly on another engine, you will still need to check the pulley alignment and maybe make adjustments, but those adjustments would be smaller / easier / more possible than if you have mismatched parts with a large misalignment.

Transmission kickdown is actuated by a rod that goes up the bell housing and emerges on the back side of the engine between the carb and the driver's side valve cover. There is a hinged "L" bracket there bolted to the intake manifold, and the kickdown rod clips in to that bracket. The top side has a rod which slides through the L bracket and moves with the gas pedal, a spring clip on that rod is adjustable, so when the gas pedal is pressed down far enough, the spring clip hits the L bracket, causes it to pivot, which pushes down the kickdown rod and downshifts the transmission. If you are lucky, the spring clip is adjusted too far forward and so it never hits the L bracket. You could just squeeze it and slide it further down the rod towards the windshield causing the transmission to kickdown when the gas pedal is pushed

Your air cleaner is older than MY64. 63 is likely, installed incorrectly.

Very unusual to have a compressor mount for any reason other than there was a compressor mounted at one time. The 3-groove crank pulley and idler suggest that also (however, note the absence of condenser lines and wrong fan). If your engine is not original, or if the crank pulley was changed for any reasons it could have everything to do with belt issues.

The "loud" engine needs more explanation. Just quiet all those belts? Insulation under the hood? Cowl seal? Vacuum?

Just adding to JTSchug's notes--it appears you've got a new(er) water pump in there as well. The ones that come off the shelf these days are generic and really meant for motors that powered Ford pickups. I'd also take a look at the accessory mount points on the pump when checking and adjusting the belt alignment.

Wow. Lots of very great info here. This is helping me a ton. I knew there was something wrong with all of this front end. I would much rather just figure out which pulleys were original than try and make this current frankenstein setup work. Now to just find all of these pulleys.

To go back to the engine noise, it's revving louder than all get out. When I'm lucky, it would stop once I hit about 65, but now it just keeps revving no matter the speed I go. I adjust the clip and nothing really makes a difference. It's a C6 BTW, if that helps.

EDIT: Also, when I have driven without the alternator belt (don't ask), this noise was completely gone. Related to the bracket maybe??

Just for clarification. Are these the correct mounts for the Alternator?

The first bracket link is for A/C, the second is the bracket for non-A/C. Is your car an A/C car or a non-A/C car? I know the A/C doesn't work, but most of the brackets and pulleys you've got are for A/C. If you have a non-A/C car, and you want to make it correct you are going to need to replace almost everything. My suggestion would be to call around and see if someone would sell you the whole belt setup with the brackets and spacers, preferably off from an engine where they all worked together. A lot of T-bird suppliers have parts cars, and you can get used parts for reasonable prices.

Used parts are not on the website or in the catalog, so you must call them, but they could be a good option because they are cheaper than new or rebuilt parts, and if they all come from the same engine, then you know they lined up at one time. Make sure you get the water pump pulley and the P/S pump pulley. You will need a special tool to remove the old P/S pump pulley.

It's a non-AC car with all of this BS attached. 5 blade fan. I was told it's a 428, but it's a Z code. So I assume somebody just dropped it in to this car at some point with everything still on.

I have the pulleys and brackets on order, but I can't find a proper P/S pulley. I guess I will call some parts shops.
This is what I'm looking to replace based on what I'm getting from here:
Crank pulley
W/P pulley
alternator brackets
P/S brackets
P/S pulley

Not the right pulley. Your MY66 does not use an Eaton pump. If you're not having any luck, good used correct parts are available from Bird Nest and/or Pat Wilson.

Are you certain it's a non-AC car? The clues are pretty confusing, so far. What's under the dash plenum-wise? (hope I haven't missed a detail in the posts.)

Yeah, it is pretty confusing. No AC lines anywhere on the car, no dash vents, the original heater/defroster still work. I'm guessing hard that it was just a drop-n-go, unless some other poor fool tried to turn this into a factory A/C car through modification over the years and gave up.

Not the right pulley. Your MY66 does not use an Eaton pump. If you're not having any luck, good used correct parts are available from Bird Nest and/or Pat Wilson.

Are you certain it's a non-AC car? The clues are pretty confusing, so far. What's under the dash plenum-wise? (hope I haven't missed a detail in the posts.)

unless some other poor fool tried to turn this into a factory A/C car through modification over the years and gave up.

That's probably right. The idler pulley, compressor mount, alternator in the "low" position (this is where some of your bracket headache comes in), and 3 groove crank are all things you wouldn't find on a non-AC car. Those took some effort to source and add correctly. But if the fan body (blower) isn't protruding into the engine bay behind the right valve cover, or if there's no opening next to the booster where two sizeable hoses would have passed through the firewall like these...

then you're correct that it's a case of "poor fool" went to some effort but stopped far short of the goal.

Correct. OE booster, 73 mustang dual 7/8" bore for 4 drums. When I perform a swap to front KH discs and '65 OE booster, it's uncertain which master I'll pair with. I'd like a dual, but I hate things that don't fit. Planning to use the stock '65 single until I get a plan.

Just adding to JTSchug's notes--it appears you've got a new(er) water pump in there as well. The ones that come off the shelf these days are generic and really meant for motors that powered Ford pickups. I'd also take a look at the accessory mount points on the pump when checking and adjusting the belt alignment.

Good luck--let us know how it goes.

~Steve

Hey Steve!

So I got all the correct pulleys and brackets, only to have none of it fit. I'm assuming it's the water pump, so I'm ordering a proper one from birds nest. Is that the issue you were warning me about?
Thanks!